I barely remember hearing about the upcoming Gnomeo & Juliet, except that it was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet using lawn decorations, and featuring music by Sir Elton John.  Oh.  That’s exactly what it is.

At the start of the preview, when the Touchstone Pictures logo popped up, I thought:

Why isn’t this a Disney release?  (see above header)

Because Touchstone is Disney, you see.  So I started thinking:

Maybe it’s a PG-13 release aimed at an older audience.

After all, that is why Disney created the thunderbolt off-shoot in the first place.  But no.  It’s rated G.  And it’s the first of all Touchstone Pictures to be rated so low.  (It’s only their second animated feature, to boot.  The other is The Nightmare Before Christmas.)

Well, how was I going to get to the bottom of this?  What rhymes with stickymedia?

Initially, the film was going to be produced by Disney Feature Animation, but was shut down by its new chief, John Lasseter, after the Pixar acquisition.  Miramax Films picked up the project and guided its production until the division closed down… The film will now be released under the Touchstone Pictures banner on February 11, 2011… (via Wikipedia)

So much for answers.  My guess is that so much work was put into it prior to merger with Pixar, that it was the traditional cry of:

The show must gnome on!

Sorry for that pun, but I’d venture to guess the actual film won’t be much better… And for sure, it won’t be better than this adaption of the Shakespeare classic: